P.S. There will be no NRIC tag to your name in the register and the serial numbers are not unique as before. So there are serial numbesr that repeats itself all over other polling station. (Example Tampines have 46 polling station and there will be 46 of the same serial number.)
Extracted from Steve Chia Website
From the elections department website:
"Is ballot secrecy compromised by reason of having a serial number?"
Theoretically, it is possible for anyone with access to the ballot papers to identify who cast a particular vote. The link between the ballot paper number and the electoral register through the counterfoil does facilitate tracing from a ballot paper to a voter's identity on the register. However, ballot papers can be examined only under strict conditions, and there are safeguards that make it extremely difficult to find out how any particular voter voted.
After the ballot papers are counted, all ballot papers and their counterfoils have to be sealed in the Supreme Court vault for 6 months, after which all the ballot papers and other election documents are destroyed. During those 6 months, these documents can only be retrieved by court order. The court will issue such an order only if it is satisfied that a vote has been fraudulently cast and the result of the election may be affected as a result. Our courts have issued no such order to date.
The serial number on the ballot paper is to protect the integrity of the democratic process, and not to undermine the secrecy of the vote.
The ballot paper number is still a feature of UK parliamentary and local government elections."
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My answers:
First, it is extremely difficult to find out how any particular voter voted. The PAP Government will need to sneak in a team of people into the Supreme Court Vault, hide in there and manually find the ballot slips of papers among the 24,000s (in a constituency) and tally it 1 by 1 with the counterfoil of the ballot paper. Then they need to match that counterfoil with a NRIC number, and then note down which Party that particular NRIC had voted for.
This is a tedious and illegal process that brings no benefits to the PAP. Instead, it jeopardizes their legitimacy to rule.
Second, the PAP is not interested to know who you – AN INDIVIDUAL – voted. They cannot make use of the knowledge nor exercise this knowledge.
They are more interested to know how a electoral division voted. A electoral division consists of around 3,000+ voters in around 10 – 13 blocks of HDB flats. They record that information ONLY WHEN the results of a electoral division are being announced at each counting table. They are interested in that data because when the electoral boundaries are to be redrawn at the next election, those electoral division seen as supporting the Opposition will be redrawn into a stronger PAP GRC.
Finally, assuming that the PAP Government has a way to extract the data and keep it on record in their computer system. Word will leak out very quickly. As a fellow citizen wrote on my facebook, “if they (PAP) do know your vote, you cannot get HDB grant, which means HDB officers must have a 'mark'. What is keeping the HDB officer from telling their friends and family about this mark? Have you heard it? If there is a mark, and your child can't go to PAP kindergarten, these person doing the registering will reject you, what’s stopping this person from telling their friends and relative about the 'mark'? Have you heard from friends and relative working in HDB, MCYS or PAP enrollment officer about the 'mark'?”
I hope the above answers to your (and all swing voters) worries about the secrecy of the ballot paper.
Hope the above help explain.
Cheers,
Steve
